The world has known about free online courses like MIT OpenCourseWare and Open University (for a longer list, check the end of my foundation post about online education). Until today, I wasn’t aware of any university that has offered personal finance courses and certainly not one that has put it all on the web for anyone to use!
That’s exactly what the University of Idaho Extension has done. They’ve put their Money 101 program online and made it available to anyone who has an internet connection and an interest in bettering their financial situation.

There are six major topics and each major topic has a series of resources and article explaining various facets of that topic. For example, Money 101 has subsections titled Setting Financial Goals, Tracking Expenses, Budgeting, and Savings. Underneath each of those are several articles to get you on the right track. Along the side you get a bit of trivia too.. for example, the personal savings rate rose to 5% in the second quarter of 2009, vs. less than 2% all throughout 2007.

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My alma mater (Iowa State) has an “extension” program that provides agriculture-related programs to the public. It’s completely outside of the “normal” college curriculum. I’m guessing that it means something similar for Idaho.

That’s good they are offering a program like this, but I think programs like this should be offered in High School. Not every person goes to college and many that do still have trouble managing their money.

Extension is a USDA program with several land grant universities across the US that sought to spread egghead knowledge to farmers for use in practical terms.

Its mission has been broadened to educate the community in things like nutrition, household management and personal finance. It also provides non-degree education. I’ve taken Extension classes with UC Berkeley and I am a personal finance counselor/volunteer with VA Extension (run out of Virgina Tech.)

It is a federal program that serves the community. As such they have to track demographics of participants and funding is on a yearly basis. I think it’s a great use of tax dollars as in my area it sponsors a master gardener program and public education. (Plus my volunteer coordinator rocks!)

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